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Flirting with Danger
May 2nd, 2009
We went home with one wet boot and wet bangs (do boys have bangs? Whatever the front long part of his hair is called.) All things considered..that is darn good.
The Christmas of 1989 we spent at Gulf Shores with my grandparents. I was almost ten, and JHJ was almost seven. The little town near the beach had a Christmas village set up in its park. The village consisted of a dozen or so cut out house facades leaning against the park’s live oaks. The best part was all the fluffy white polyester snow strewn about…the average high temp hovering near eighty. Grandpa and Dad treated JHJ and I to ice-cream cones and then we walked over to the park. Looking at the “village” took all of four minutes, and there was no playground. Dad and Grandpa were leaning against our white minivan, and JHJ and I ran to look at the water fountain.
It was not fancy; it actually looked very much like the one in the pictures. Having spent the last couple of years in gymnastics, I was already aware that the balance beam was the only apparatus that I did not COMPLETELY suck at. I hopped up on the concrete rim and started practicing my extremely remedial beam routine. Just several times around the circumference, and repeatedly telling my dad I was not going to fall in. I MIGHT have had (still have) a reputation for being a might (very) clumsy.
JHJ got a gleam in his eye. All of those big sister atrocities that I had perpetrated on him flashed through his mind and he ran up behind me and pushed…..and SPLASH! I fell in. My Dad and Grandpa, and of course JHJ started laughing. I stood up sputtering and yelling at JHJ, who ran in the opposite direction. My Grandpa said I could blame him if I wanted…so I did tell my mom when I climbed out of the van soaking wet that Grandpa pushed me. But it was really JHJ.
My father tells the story about how I fell in the fountain and then how a year later the city tore it down because of the crack in the fountain’s foundation at least once a week, and it stopped being funny about 19 years ago. Does your family have a story like that? One they think is HILARIOUS, but you hate?
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Finally, the truth comes out. All those years of blaming poor Grandpa. I knew he didn’t push you, but always thought you just fell in on your own. No one ever once mentioned that JHJ had anything to do with it.
I most certainly did not!
I think every family has a story like that. The one my dad thinks is hilarious is actually quite embarrassing.
When I was 10-ish, I was on my hometown swim team. I started competitive swimming when I was 7 and continued until I was 13 (when my parents made me choose between swimming and basketball…if I had known then what I know now, I would have stuck with swimming).
Anyway, because I was a competitive swimmer (and somewhat because I’ve never been too fond of mornings…and having to get ready), I had very short hair…not G.I. Jane short, but a short (sort of bushy) haircut. I really wish I had a photo I could post here. That alone would provide much laughter.
Nevertheless, my whole family was in Dillard’s, when I was 10 (with my short hair), looking for a new swimsuit for me. It needed to have racerback straps, and I preferred the thicker Nike or Speedo varieties over the cutesy stuff. This suit was to be strictly for swim team practice.
So…I was feeling the material of one such swimsuit on one of the mannequins, when an elderly man walked up to my father and said, “You’re going to have to have a talk with that young man,” and snickered as he walked away.
I was crazy-embarrassed, and my dad thought it was hilarious.
I’m not sure whether the elderly man was talking about me feeling the swimsuit or my outfit (a hot pink tunic over white shorts…with pink sandals – one of my favorite outfits). Either way, mom was mortified.
Dad tells the story quite often, because I think he thinks it’s funny…it is not, was not and will never be FUNNY…it was, is and will always be SAD!